Sri Lanka, England and South Africa recorded comfortable wins, as group stage gets intense

Day Two of the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals 2015 was about intense cricket as Sri Lanka and England moved in sight of a semi-final spot; and a long awaited first appearance for Pakistan and UAE

Dehradun, October 20, 2015: The second day of the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals 2015 was all about consolidation. Sri Lanka secured their second win – this time against Pakistan. So did England, as they beat Bangladesh with great ease; while South Africa got their first win on the board in dominant style by crushing UAE.

Pakistan had no reply to the Lankan bowlers and lost by 42 runs. “We have one more match against the UAE to go. We just want to concentrate on playing good cricket so that we can be consistent if we make it to the latter stages,” said skipper and Sri Lanka captain Malshan Mendis.

England brushed aside Bangladesh by 7 wickets and were clearly upset with that effort for they felt they should have done better than give themselves a 119-run target to chase down. “Our fielding let us down today. We let them off the hook and gave away 20-30 more runs than we should have,” said Irfan Karim, who scored 71* off 48 balls to round off an impressive win.

Defending champions, South Africa decided to bat first against the UAE and push up their run-rate, besides registering their first win in the tournament. Murray Coetzee smacked a whirlwind 120*, the World Finals’ first 100, as South Africa posted 208/2. It is a total that won’t be scaled easily, though the 109-run victory will please them more.